


Horses, Elephants, and Boats, Oh My!

by AchillesMonkey



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Academy Era, Episode: s01e07 The Hub, F/M, FitzSimmons - Freeform, Fitzsimmons Secret Valentine, Fluff, Honeymoon, Sci-Ops Era (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), missing moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 08:11:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13677741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AchillesMonkey/pseuds/AchillesMonkey
Summary: Written for the FitzSimmons Network's Valentine Exchange. Based on the prompt: FitzSimmons + archaic modes of transportationFive times Fitz and Simmons utilized various modes of transportation over the years. Featuring platonic FitzSimmons in the first four chapters, and romantic FitzSimmons in the fifth.





	1. Horse and Buggy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [recoveringrabbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day, recoveringrabbit!!!

“—I only stopped because of my scoliosis surgery,” Jemma explained to Fitz as she made a left turn and started driving down a long gravel road toward a large house and stables. “During my recovery, my special interest changed to astronomy, so I stopped riding horses altogether.”

“If you stopped, then why are we going to visit?” Fitz wondered as Jemma parked the car next to the stables. He got out and immediately wrinkled his nose as the disgusting smell of manure hit his nostrils.

“I wanted to show you,” Jemma told him. “It was a big part of my childhood, well, for a few years at least.”

Fitz followed Jemma as she made her way inside the stable. He stayed just outside the entrance, watching as his best friend went over to greet an older, blonde woman approximately the same age as his mum.

“Susan, this is my best friend, Fitz,” Jemma introduced him, turning to motion toward him. She sighed when she saw him hovering at the entrance. “Fitz, come in.”

“It smells,” he complained.

“Ugh, Fitz!”

Susan laughed and walked to where Fitz was standing. “Does it?” she asked. “I suppose I’ve got used to it over the years. I won’t shake your hand, Fitz, so you don’t get any of the smell on you.”

He forced a polite smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“And you, Fitz.” Susan turned to Jemma. “Sunshine is out in the field if you want to go visit. There are apples in that container over there.”

Jemma let out a squeal that made her sound more like a teenage girl than Fitz had ever heard her sound before and hurried over to the apple container. She pulled out two and threw one at Fitz who didn’t even bother trying to catch it as it landed two metres away.

Jemma grabbed another apple and made her way to Fitz, stopping to pick up the one she’d thrown on her way. “Come meet Sunshine, Fitz.”

~*~*~*~

There were 6 horses in the field. Sunshine was a chestnut Welsh Cob who thoroughly enjoyed the apples Jemma fed to her. Jemma was fully focused on the horse, completely ignoring Fitz who had hung back and was just taking it all in.

“What do you think, Fitz?” Susan asked, coming over to stand next to him.

“They’re not as good as monkeys,” he answered honestly, causing the woman to laugh.

Jemma turned and beamed at Susan. “Oh, it’s so good to see Sunshine again,” she told the woman.

“Did you want to take her for a ride?”

“Oh, can I?”

“Yes,” Susan said, nodding. She turned to Fitz. “Butler’s a gentle guy who’s good for beginners if you want to join her,” she told him.

“No way,” Fitz said quickly, shaking his head. “You’re not getting me on one of those creatures.”

“Ugh, Fitz!” Jemma cried. “Come on, it will be so much fun!”

“No, Jemma!”

“We could also go for a carriage ride,” Susan suggested. “Would you feel more comfortable with that, Fitz?”

In all honesty, Fitz would feel more comfortable going for a car ride back to Jemma’s house, but Jemma was looking at him with an eager, hope-filled expression that he sighed and agreed to the carriage ride.

~*~*~*~

Fitz stood back while Jemma and Susan worked on hitching the horses to the carriage. When they were ready, he climbed in on the left side, sitting down next to Jemma who was sitting in the middle. Susan gave a command to the horses and the carriage jolted into motion.

Fitz instinctively grabbed the side of the carriage with his left hand and Jemma’s hand with his right. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze and held onto it as the ride continued. It was bumpy and jerky, and the motion made Fitz feel a bit sick. But it was nice, sitting next to Jemma, holding her hand. Maybe horses weren’t as bad as he thought.


	2. Train

“Attention ladies and gentlemen,” a voice announced over the tannoy, “the train leaving platform 2C to Glasgow Central has been delayed by approximately twenty minutes. I repeat, the train leaving platform 2C to Glasgow Central has been delayed by approximately twenty minutes.”

“What’s the point in even having a train schedule if the trains never stick to it?” Jemma grumbled.

“D’you want to go take a look in the shops?” Fitz asked.

“No, I want to go on the train,” Jemma snapped. She took a deep breath and unclenched her fists. “Sorry, Fitz. I’m just anxious about meeting your mum.”

“What? But Mum’s no one to be anxious about,” Fitz told her.

“Well, I am. I want to make a good impression.”

“You’ll do fine. You’re the first friend I’ve ever brought home. Mum’s going to love you no matter what.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“The train ride’s going to take five hours —”

“—and twenty minutes,” Jemma interjected with a frown.

“—so we’ll have all that time to prepare you.”

“Prepare me?”

“To meet Mum, so you won’t be anxious.”

“I do excel at preparation,” Jemma said.

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Fitz said.

“Okay, what do I need to know?”

“Well, when we first get there, she’s going to have tea and biscuits ready, and she’ll want to hear all about our train ride, and our visit to your family, and how life at the Academy is. She’ll fill us in on all the gossip in the neighborhood. Then she’ll show you to the guest room where you’ll be staying, and I’ll show you my childhood bedroom, which I can guarantee Mum hasn’t touched except to clean since I’ve been gone.”

“What about your Mum? What’s she like?”

“The best.” Jemma smiled at the fondness in Fitz’s voice as he answered her question. “I know everyone thinks their mum is the best, but my mum really is. She—she never really understood me, not like you do, but she always tried.”

“She sounds like a good mum.”

“She’s so excited to meet you.”

“Assuming this train ever gets here, she can.”

Fitz chuckled. “Surely you know that train delays are just part of train travel, Simmons.”

“Yes, but it’s the worst part of train travel.”

“No, the worst part of train travel is when they cancel the trains and you have to take a replacement bus.”

“Oh, yes, that is awful.”

“Come with me to the shops; I want to buy snacks for the journey.”


	3. Elephant

“We haven’t been cleared for field duty. Why were we chosen for this mission?” Fitz asked.

“The 0-8-4 they found needs a biochemist and an engineer to safely remove it from where it’s stuck,” Jemma answered, “and we’ve already begun earning an excellent reputation at Sci-Ops.”

“And the only way to get to the 0-8-4 is —”

“—by elephant.”

“Agents FitzSimmons!” Agent Khan called out, waving to them from where he had been talking to the  _ mahout _ . “We are ready!”

Fitz sighed and tugged on his backpack’s straps to make sure it was firmly on his back. “Is this payback for me refusing to ride the horses?” he questioned as they walked toward the elephants.

“What?! Don’t be ridiculous, Fitz! Besides, this will be much more exciting than riding horses.”

Fitz wrinkled his nose. “They smell worse than horses,” he muttered softly to Jemma.

She gave him a playful nudge with her elbow. “Cheer up, Fitz,” she told him, “we’re bound to see monkeys on the journey.”

Fitz considered that and smiled. “Excellent point, Simmons. We’ll see rhesus macaques for sure.”

The  _ mahout _ approached and began giving them instructions on how to approach the elephant and how to control the elephants’ movement while on it’s back. Once they had successfully repeated the information back to him, he allowed them to go to the elephants.

Fitz and Simmons approached the elephants from the right and allowed the creatures to nose at them with their trunks. The  _ mahout _ gave the command for the elephants to kneel so they could climb on. 

Fitz gave a short yelp as the elephant stood. “Remember the monkeys, Fitz!” Jemma called out.

“Remember the monkeys,” he repeated to himself. He raised his voice so Jemma could hear him. “Did you know that a rhesus macaque was the first primate in space?” he asked her.

“Albert the second, right?” she answered.

“Yes, though sadly it died on return because they couldn’t figure out the bloody parachutes. The first monkeys to survive space travel were Able, a rhesus macaque, and Baker, a squirrel monkey. Able died during surgery a few days after the flight due to a bad reaction to the anesthetic, but Baker lived for 27 years.”

“Fascinating!”

“Yes,” Fitz agreed. “You know, of course, that rhesus macaques were used in the development of vaccines.”

“Yes, they share 93% of the human DNA sequence.”

Fitz had grown used to the movement of the elephant while talking with Jemma, and he found that he rather enjoyed the swaying. “You’re not too bad, are you?” he told the elephant, patting its neck. The elephant flapped its ears in response. 

The ride lasted an hour, but Fitz barely noticed the time passing. Jemma kept him distracted by pointing out various local flora they passed and telling him what she knew about it, which was just as much as Fitz knew about monkeys. They did pass by a colony of rhesus macaques and Fitz was able to snap a few blurry pictures with his phone.

“I can’t wait to get those pictures developed,” he told Simmons as they climbed off their elephants.

“I got a few pictures of  _ abelmoschus moschatus _ ,” Jemma told him. “I only wish we had time for me to collect samples.”

“FitzSimmons!” Agent Khan called out. “Time to work.”

They approached the 0-8-4 where it was trapped in vines and Jemma handed a pair of gloves to Fitz and then put on her own gloves as she peered at it.

“The vines look normal,” she said to Fitz, reaching out to poke at one. The vine snapped up and lashed at her hand. She shrieked and jumped out of the way as Fitz reached out to pull her away. “I think we may have discovered a new species, Fitz,” she said, staring at the vine with a look of wonder and delight on her face.

“A murderous vine species—yeah, that’s just what we want to have discovered,” Fitz grumbled. “When we get back to Sci-Ops, I’m going to start developing some sort of drone to examine things like this so we don’t have to risk getting our fingers chopped off.”

“That’s an excellent idea, Fitz,” Jemma told him. “Now, help me figure out how to deal with these vines.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: In my research for this chapter, I came across a lot of ethical concerns about riding elephants, so I'd suggest doing your own research/keeping that in mind if you ever decide to ride an elephant yourself.


	4. Sledge

“This is Agent Shaw,” Coulson informed his team, who were standing around the holocom in the command center studying the picture on the screen. “He has SHIELD intel and we have been tasked with bringing him in. Ward, May, and I will be doing the actual rescue. FitzSimmons, your job is to come up with a way to get us to the location and then back to the Bus quickly.”

“What’s the location, sir?” Simmons asked. “And the time frame?”

“Classified,” Coulson answered, “but the climate is subarctic, and you have five hours.”

“What about me?” Skye asked when Coulson didn’t give her an assignment.

“Keep memorizing SHIELD protocols,” Coulson told her. “Dismissed.”

“Subarctic climate—” Simmons mused as she and Fitz made their way down to the lab.

“—get there and then back to the Bus quickly,” Fitz added.

“—a sledge, obviously—”

“—but we won’t have access to dogs—”

“—rope?” Simmons suggested.

“Rope?” Fitz repeated.

“Yes, attached to something on the bus to pull them back—”

“—similar to a fishing reel—that could work, Simmons.”

“—but how to get them to the location in the first place—”

“I could rig up a temporary motor,” Fitz commented as they entered the lab.

“I remember seeing sledges in one of the cargo pods,” Simmons told him, starting to head to the back of the lab where the cargo pods were located.

“Why would they stock a cargo pod with sledges?” Skye asked, following them. “And what the hell are sledges?"

“Sleds,” Fitz told her, as he opened one of the cargo pod doors, “and so we’ll have them when we need them.”

“Like now,” Simmons added. “Since we can be assigned missions in all parts of the globe, they made sure we would have everything we need for all sorts of climates.”

“How very Boy Scouts,” Skye said sarcastically.

Fitz grinned and gave her the three-finger salute before opening another cargo pod door to reveal the sledges. “Help me get these to the cargo bay, so I can make sure they’ll be safe enough to use,” he requested as he grabbed one sledge to drag out.

“I’ll go look for rope,” Simmons announced once they’d got the sledges out.

“Thank you, Simmons,” Fitz said, already on his knees examining the sledges’ runners.

It took a couple hours, but Fitz managed to adjust the sledges so that they would run with a temporary electric motor as well as build a machine that would pull the sledges back to the Bus.

“Now, we just need to test them, to make sure it works,” Fitz said.

“Test them?” Skye repeated. “How? We’re on a plane.”

“A very large plane,” Simmons said.

“We could start from right next to the cargo door—” Fitz suggested.

“—and then into the lab,” Jemma finished, looking at the space.

“You guys are going to be in so much trouble if Coulson, May, or Ward catches you.”

“We have to test if they work, Skye,” Simmons told her. “That’s just part of science.”

“All right,” Fitz said, waving Skye over to the box he’d designed to bring the sledges back. “Simmons and I are going to test the motors by riding the sledges down to the cargo door. When we say go, you press this button, and the ropes will bring up back.”

Skye sighed. “Fine. But you better make sure that you miss Lola.”

“We have plenty of room,” Simmons reassured her, as she exchanged a nervous look with Fitz.

They each climbed on one of the sledges. “Ready, steady—”

“What the hell are you doing?” Ward’s voice interrupted them. Fitz and Simmons looked up to see Ward standing above them on the catwalk, his arms crossed, and a stern look on his face.

“We have to test them to see if they work, Agent Ward,” Fitz snapped, glaring up at the agent.

“Not in the plane,” Ward said firmly. “Wait until we arrive at the location, then we can do a quick test before we begin the actual mission.”

“But—”

“I’m sure Coulson will tell you the exact same thing,” Ward said. “Do I need to go get him?”

“No,” Simmons said quickly, “you’re right; it’s a silly idea to test them now. In order to properly test them, we’ll need to be on ice.”

“Besides,” Fitz added as they got off the plane and went back into the lab, “I’m the one who designed it, so we know it will work perfectly.”

“It’s still proper science to test it, Fitz,” Simmons told him.

“I know! I’m just saying—I _am_ an engineering genius, a fact which seems to be overlooked rather a lot of the time.”

“Coulson wouldn’t have assigned you this task if he didn’t appreciate your genius, Fitz,” Simmons reassured him.

“Yeah,” Skye agreed. “Ward’s just being an ass threatening to tell Coulson like that.”

~*~*~*~

They reached their location a few hours later and FitzSimmons did a quick test run with the sledges. They worked exactly as Fitz had intended.

“Good work, Fitz,” Coulson praised.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Simmons, the intel will most likely need to be extracted from Agent Shaw, so I’ll need you ready to do that.”

“Of course, sir.”

“See,” Fitz said as Coulson, May, and Ward left on the sledges, “I knew they’d work just fine.”


	5. Boat

“If you use that many, you’re going to go through withdrawal,” Jemma cautioned Fitz as he started to place another seasickness patch behind his ear.

“I just want to make sure I don’t get sick,” Fitz told her. “This is our honeymoon; I need to be well.”

“Even if you’re not, I’ll take care of you,” Jemma replied. “In sickness and in health, remember?” She grabbed his collar and pulled him in for a kiss, reaching up to pull off two of the seasickness patches from behind his ear. Fitz yelped as they broke apart. “You only need one, dear,” she told him. “Trust me; I’m a doctor.”

“Not that kind of doctor,” Fitz reminded her, pouting and rubbing behind his ear.

“Are you ready? We need to go meet Angelo at the docks.”

Fitz nodded. “Yep, just let me grab my hat.”

~*~*~*~

“Wasn’t the angelfish gorgeous?” Jemma asked, cuddling against Fitz as their boat captain drove them back to land after their snorkeling adventure. “And the lionfish too.”

“I liked the turtles,” Fitz said.

“And you didn’t even get seasick,” Jemma teased.

“Yeah, thanks to the seasickness patch.”

“I’d like to go stargazing tonight. Do you want to?”

“You’re the only star I need to gaze at,” Fitz told her.

“Ugh, Fitz!” Jemma rolled her eyes with a smile. “That’s so cheesy, even for you.”

“It’s not cheesy; it’s romantic!” Fitz protested, grinning back at her.

“It’s romantic  _ and _ cheesy, and I love that you’re both.”

Fitz kissed her. “I love how excited you get about fish,” he said. He kissed her again. “And stars.”

“Well I love you for indulging my excitement,” Jemma said.

Fitz whimpered as the boat lurched unexpectedly. “I think the seasickness patch is wearing off.”

“We’re almost back to shore,” Jemma told him.

“I’m not a fan of boats,” Fitz decided. “I think I prefer planes, or trains, or even elephants.”

Jemma smiled. “Remember our assignment in India?”

Fitz nodded. “I was not happy you agreed to that mission, but it turned out all right.”

“It did. And it even gave you the idea for the DWARFs.”

“Do you remember when we went to visit your family for the first time, and you took me on a carriage ride?”

“Only because you refused to ride the horses.”

“We held hands. I didn’t really understand what I was feeling at the time, but I knew I really liked holding your hand.” He reached over and took Jemma’s left hand in his, his thumb rubbing over her ring. “I’m so happy we got married.”

“So am I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and for any kudos/comments! Feel free to check out my [Tumblr](http://unlessimwrongwhichyouknowimnot.tumblr.com)


End file.
